Title: Safety Net
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Author: Singing Violin
Rating: K
Summary: Chakotay muses during one of those scenes in "Hunters."
Disclaimer: TPTB own them, but they didn't do what I wanted with them, so I'm borrowing them for a bit. I'll give them back when I'm done.
Feedback: Yes please.
Archiving: Anywhere.

Her words echo in my ears. There was such finality to that letter.

She looks at me with more vulnerability than I've ever seen from her before, and suddenly I know the unflappable Captain Janeway is going to cry.

And she's expecting me to comfort her.

How, exactly, does one comfort the one who comforts everyone else? The one to whom everyone turns because she's always strong, never vulnerable. The one who weathers every storm with grace and ease. My stomach flutters with panic at the prospect; I am her loyal First Officer, I can do everything else she asks of me.

But I can't hold her while she cries. I won't.

She might think this is what she wants, but I know better. I know that if I wrap my arms around her and let her indulge her damsel-in-distress fantasy, she'll hate herself for it later. She'll feel weak, and then she'll appear weak, most likely at an inopportune moment.

And that is when the indomitable Captain Janeway will fail, and Voyager will be lost.

I am her loyal First Officer. It is my job to make sure she succeeds at everything. Which is why I cannot, no matter how much it pains me to watch her eyes pool with liquid anguish, let her collapse into my arms.

She claims Mark was her safety net, but he wasn't here. Nobody was ever going to see her miss her trapeze and fall into that net. Now the net is gone, but it really doesn't change anything; I couldn't let her fall before, and I can't let her fall now. The moment she relies on someone else, she will be admitting that she can't succeed on her own.

And if I know Kathryn Janeway, that's not an acceptable alternative.

I look into those blue pools and I watch them darken slightly. She wants a release, she wants to weep for what she has lost. And suddenly I understand; she's trusting me not to provide her with that release, here in her Ready Room, but to prevent it.

I am her loyal First Officer, and I will give her what she needs. Lightly, I touch her arm, and a silent message is passed between us: this is as far as it goes.

And then her posture and her face subtly transform, and I can almost see her swallow her tears. Perhaps she will cry them into her pillow tonight, I don't know. I won't know. That's between her and her bed.

Now I realize - perhaps I can be her new safety net after all. She regards me with calm trust, and I understand that the momentary crisis has been averted.

It is enough for her to know that, if necessary, I will pick up the broken pieces of her soul and let her tears soak into my uniform. That is, as long as it's never necessary. And as the loyal First Officer, it's my job to make sure of that.

I have a new duty aboard Voyager, starting today. I am a safety net, destined to hang loosely below the dangerous acrobatics taking place inside our captain's mind, but never, ever, to be used. It is enough for her to know that I am here.